Next up: Alma College!

[steuard]

After sending out oodles of applications all fall, my job hunt appears to be over: I've accepted a tenure-track professor job at Alma College starting next fall. Alma is a small school in central Michigan (the town of Alma is tiny, but it's not unreasonably far from larger places). Their physics department is small, but they do routinely graduate a handful of majors each year (comparable to what we see at Joint Science, in fact). Because I've built up some substantial teaching experience already I'll be on an accelerated tenure track (tenure in four years, if all goes well), which is probably also a good thing. I liked all of the people that I met when I interviewed there, I've heard encouraging things about the school and the community from other people I've talked to, and I'm looking forward to starting there next fall!

I'm sure there are a zillion things I could add here to flesh out the details, but for once in my life I'll keep things short. I won't completely depend on this until I have a signed contract in hand, mind you, but that shouldn't take too long. I'll actually be able to focus on classes this semester!

Comments

[pearmeson.livejournal.com]

Congratulations, that's awesome!

The small liberal arts school sounds perfect, and their small department probably means you'll have a significant impact on the curriculum and the lives of their physics majors -- which is an altogether comforting thought. I expect to see some neat students come out of Alma College in a few years. :)

[kirin]

Congrats!

(Also keeping it short since I need to go pick up a cat from the vet right about now...)

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Alma may be tiny, but it's got soul.

Congratulations!

[pmb.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

that's AWESOME

[dmyersta.livejournal.com]

Congrats!!!

[(Anonymous)]

Alma: It's not just a crossword answer anymore!

[feuervogel]

I was going to poke you soon if you hadn't said anything.

Congrats!

[spoonless.livejournal.com]

congrats!

So, is this the kind of place where you mostly teach but do a bit of research now and then, albeit without graduate students? I bet you could have a lot more freedom and less pressure at a place like that, not to mention making more of an impact on the students.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

They at least officially present teaching and research as equally important, but in practice it does generally turn out that it's hard to make big progress in research at the same time that you're teaching a full load of classes. (Summer's nice for that, as are breaks, weekends, and spare time early in the semester before class responsibilities pile up.) There's still pressure, of course: you do need to publish things, and you've got less time available to do so. But I don't think it's the same frantic pressure you'd get at a research institution (and the time you spend teaching and mentoring students counts strongly in your favor instead of being neutral or negative, which is a real plus for someone like me who would do that anyway).